1970 : chronologie performance

Publié le 25 février 2015 par Olivier Lussac

1970

- ACCONCI Vito, DILLON Kathy & OPPENHEIM Dennis, Applications, 1970. Chicago.
19:32 min, color, silent, Super 8 film.

A woman kisses Acconci’s body, covering him in red lipstick traces. Acconci then rubs his body against another man (Dennis Oppenheim), transferring the stains onto him.

- ACCONCI Vito, Breath-Through, 1970. 3 min. Color. Silent. Super 8 on video.

Super-8 camera held out before him as shield and surrogate, Acconci pushes through a landscape of dense reeds and overgrowth. Break-Through records this search for a pause or clearing in what, for the viewer, amounts to an abstracted and scarcely differentiated visual field.

- ACCONCI Vito, Corrections, 1970. 12 min, b&w, sound, Super 8 film

Unavailable until now, Corrections is Acconci’s first single-channel video. Back to the camera, with only his head and bare shoulders visible, Acconci lights a match and brings it around to the nape of his neck. The lights dim as the flame nears his body hair, which briefly flares in the darkness, at which point Acconci shakes out the match. This action is repeated for the duration of the piece. Corrections introduces themes that typify Acconci’s body-based performance work of the 1970’s.

- ACCONCI Vito, Digging Piece, 1970. 10 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video.

Standing alone among beach dunes, Acconci begins to kick at the sand below him. Over the course of the film’s ten minutes, this repeated action displaces sand at a steady rate : as the artist sinks lower into the hole he creates, the mound of sand before him grows in correspondance.

- ACCONCI Vito, Filling Up Space, 3 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video.

A view of a brick wall : the artist enters and walks from side to the other, back and forth, row after row.

- ACCONCI Vito, Flour/Breath Piece, 1970. 3 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video.

The artist, covered in flour, tries to blow the flour off his skin.

- ACCONCI Vito, Gargle/Spit Piece, 1970. 3 min. color. Silent. Super 8 on video.

The artist, sitting naked, takes water from a pot into his mout hand gargles ; he spits it out onto his stomach and groin, transferring the water from one « ontainer » (the pot) to another (his body).

- ACCONCI Vito, Open/Close, 1970 (action-vidéo).

Ce montage de deux séquences propose un schéma d’oppositions dialectiques. Open montre l’artiste se masturbant avec une tomate. Ce symbole résiduel de la féminité ou cet objet fantasmatique signifie l’imbrication de deux opposés dans la définition d’un mode de la sexualité masculine, que Close va spécifier : cette deuxième séquence présente l’artiste se plâtrant le sillon des fesses, et matérialise par l’action autoréférentielle le refus de l’homosexualité. Ce refus du même introduit ici la conception de la structuration individuelle selon Vito Acconci dans l’opposition de la différence, et l’hétérosexualité. Mais paradoxalement, si les objets utilisés à la fois dans le premier acte puis dans le second décrivent bien des qualités attribuées respectivement au féminin (ronde, rouge, liquide) et au masculin (solide), il n’en reste pas moins que l’autre, qu’il soit femme ou homme, est physiquement absent.

Le body art (art corporel) se définit par l’action de l’artiste sur son corps, en considérant un élément humain commun à d’autres, sous l’aspect du sien propre et dans un rapport à soi. Mais cet espace individuel supposément clos sur soi fait resurgir l’altérité - bien qu’absente dans l’action, au sens artistique du terme - comme élément de structuration du psychisme, de l’identité. Dans le rapport du médium au sujet traité, l’onanisme, existe un brouillage narratif instauré par l’émotion donnée à voir à travers le rythme et les détails de l’action filmée en temps réel. Open-Close fait surgir agressivement l’intime dans l’espace public. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 6:40 min, color, silent, Super 8 film

In this performance based tape, Acconci uses his body to explore notions of opening and closure.

- ACCONCI Vito, Openings, 1970.
1970, 14 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film

Acconci’s body-based performances are often willfully provocative in their testing of physical limits and controlled actions. Here, as the camera frames Acconci’s stomach in close up, he painstakingly pulls out each hair from the skin around his navel.

- ACCONCI Vito, Rubbings. 1970.

Rubbings est représenté par une métaphore un processus d’intégration d’une réalité extérieure à soi. Vito Acconci est nu, allongé sur le dos. Le cadrage coupe sa tête au niveau du nez. Il se frotte le ventre latéralement de la main droite - ce mouvement conduit le spectateur à se concentrer sur la densité du corps. Sa main droite quitte l’écran un instant et recommence le frottement. Il soulève légèrement sa main en mouvement et nous donne à voir un parasite urbain très présent à New York, un cafard, qu’il écrase au cours de ce pétrissage. Progressivement, plusieurs de ces insectes apparaissent sur son corps, vivants ou inertes, mais toujours à la merci de l’artiste.

Celui-ci entend insister sur l’idée du mélange des cafards à son propre corps, puis sur le processus d’ingurgitation et de digestion par un gros plan métaphorique sur son estomac. Comment le comprendre, sinon par ce qui n’est pas donné à voir : le déploiement de la pensée de l’artiste après une action sur lui-même. Vito Acconci expose ce processus qui se situe entre le physique et le mental. L’action réalisée et l’objet extérieur impliqué laissent leurs empreintes dans le corps et l’esprit de l’acteur, qui les analyse ou les pétrit à son tour dans leurs différentes significations. Le frottement apparaît également dans une performance antérieure de quelques mois à Rubbings : Rubbing Piece (mai 1970). Lors d’une réunion d’artistes performeurs dans un restaurant, Vito Acconci s’assied à une table et se frotte l’avant-bras avec la main pendant une heure. Une manière dans ce lieu public d’écarter autrui et de marquer sa place, d’objectiver son corps, de signaler la souffrance créée par la construction de soi.

Vito Acconci attire ainsi la conscience sur la contextualité et les limites inter-individuelles, et sur ce qui est changé en soi par une action, une interaction ou une relation. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 5:06 min, color, silent, Super 8 film Acconci caresses his torso, then crushes cockroaches into his stomach and rubs them into his skin.

- ACCONCI Vito, See Through, 1970 (action-vidéo).

Dans See Through, Vito Acconci boxe son image devant un miroir. Nous ne voyons que le buste et le reflet de l’artiste. Les mouvements de ses bras ont une faible amplitude. Dans les premiers instants, les coups de poings sont contenus, puis ils heurtent le miroir et le brisent. La durée du film est celle de la montée de cette tension ou colère du moi en lutte avec lui-même. Contrairement à ce que nous pouvons voir dans de nombreux travaux de Vito Acconci, le lieu de cette action n’est pas le corps, mais l’espace restreint entre l’individu et son reflet, dans l’extériorisation du conflit.

Ce sujet a été abordé antérieurement dans Shadow Box (octobre 1970), une performance dans laquelle l’artiste frappe à la fois sur son ombre et sur le mur de la galerie, en cherchant à mettre en évidence tous les effets produits par l’action : le bruit, le déplacement dans l’espace, ainsi que les qualités physiques du boxeur occasionnel. See Through exclut le son, d’une part, la reconnaissance du lieu où l’action se produit par le cadrage en très gros plan, d’autre part, et limite la perception du corps qui est restreint au buste. Le film n’est pas tant la trace d’une performance qu’une sélection des signes essentiels à la création du sens, selon Vito Acconci. Si le miroir a une place importante dans l’art « postmoderne », comme outil conceptuel qui déplace la réalité de façon critique, et comme objet en rupture avec la pensée et les pratiques modernistes, Vito Acconci ne l’utilise pas dans ce sens. Le miroir est ici une matière prise dans l’épaisseur de l’individualité, un référent au mythe de Narcisse et à la psychologie, un lieu de transfert du moi. Dans l’oeuvre de Vito Acconci, la vidéo ou le film Super 8 sont un espace de présentation de processus humains. Leur mise en scène invite le spectateur à réfléchir, à partir de l’énoncé de l’artiste, sur lui-même et sur son vécu. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 5 min, color, silent, Super 8 film. Acconci spars with his close-up image in a mirror. He then breaks the mirror, destroying his image.

- ACCONCI Vito, Step Piece, 1970. (action-vidéo).

In Step Piece Acconci stepped on and off a stool in his apartment every morning at the rate of thirty steps a minute, continuing the effort for as long as possible ; the results of his « daily improvement » were distributed to the art public in the form of monthly progress reports. (Cf. Kate Linker, Vito Acconci, Rizzoli, New York, 1994, p. 24.

- ACCONCI Vito, Three Adaptation Studies, 1970 (action-vidéo).
8:05 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film

In these early film exercises, Acconci exhibits an almost childlike vulnerability that is at once comic and oddly effecting. In Blindfold Catching, a blindfolded Acconci reacts, flinching and lunging, as rubber balls are repeatedly thrown at him from off-screen. In Soap & Eyes, he tries to keep his eyes open after dousing his face with soapsuds, resulting in a tragicomic clown face. In Hand and Mouth, he repeatedly forces his fist into his mouth until he gags.

- ACCONCI Vito, Three Relationship Studies, 1970 (action-vidéo). 12:30 min, b&w and color, silent, Super 8 film Shadow Play, 1970 (vidéo) ; Imitations, 1970 ; Manipulations, 1970.

In this three-part exercise, Acconci explores the dynamics of the artist’s interaction with or manipulation of an other. Each study involves a form of mirroring. In Shadow-Play, Acconci spars with his own shadow image, aggressively confronting himself as other. In Imitations, Acconci attempts to mirror another man’s gestures and actions. In Manipulations, Acconci -- seen by the viewer in a mirror -- faces a nude woman and directs the movements of her hands over her body through his own hand motions.

- ACCONCI Vito, Trademarks, 1970. NYC.

- ACCONCI Vito, Two Cover Studies, 1970 (action-vidéo).

Two Cover Studies est un film Super 8 en deux parties. Cette structure est fréquente dans les premiers travaux de Vito Acconci. Ici, il met en parallèle deux actions qui ont pour objectif de protéger un autre agent au moyen de son corps, en le cachant ou en l’enfermant.

La première séquence, Scene Steal, montre l’artiste de dos, se déplaçant et inclinant son corps en fonction des mouvements de la femme, qu’on devine nue. Il cherche à la protéger de l’apparition de son image nue à l’écran et il la contraint en lui dérobant cette possibilité. Elle cherche à se dégager, alors la tension augmente progressivement dans les déplacements et dans ce rapport du masculin et du féminin. Dans la deuxième séquence, Container, Vito Acconci est nu, agenouillé au sol. Il cherche à enfermer un chat en se repliant sur ce corps plus petit que lui. L’artiste laisse l’animal s’échapper à plusieurs reprises ou l’expulse - ainsi le chat sort à reculons du bassin, derrière lui. Par l’introduction de l’image de la maternité, le rôle féminin de la protection est suggéré. L’action se termine sur l’enfermement du chat sous le corps de Vito Acconci. Les mouvements de ses épaules indiquent une lutte dans cet espace clos.

Ce film fait partie d’un ensemble de travaux dans lesquels l’artiste expérimente son action sur un autre agent, et notamment la problématique du contrôle de l’autre. Ici, qu’elle soit celle du masculin sur le féminin, ou celle du féminin ou du masculin sur le neutre (l’animal et l’enfant sont neutres en anglais), l’action de protéger est placée en rapport dialectique avec le conflit. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 7:46 min, color, silent, Super 8 film. In Scene Steal, Acconci, fully clothed, tries to shield a nude woman from the camera. In Container, he wraps his nude body around a cat as if to totally enclose it.

- ACCONCI Vito, Two Takes, 1970 (action-vidéo).

Contrairement à la majorité des films Super 8 et des vidéos de Vito Acconci, Two Takes est une oeuvre sans émotion, où il traite de la prise de possession en tant que pulsion et non pas sous l’aspect du désir ou du plaisir de l’assouvissement. Les deux séquences présentent deux actions où l’artiste saisit un objet extérieur à lui. Grass/Mouth est un plan fixe en couleur sur le buste de l’artiste, avec en arrière-plan un feuillage vert, sous un soleil d’été. Il se bourre la bouche d’herbe et, malgré des phases de nausée, il continue son action. Il n’avale pas, il accumule cet élément environnemental, naturel et terrestre. La concentration de l’artiste sur l’action n’a d’égal que la densité de la pulsion dans l’absence de distance qui peut caractériser parfois le rapport du sujet aux motivations de son acte.

Dans la deuxième séquence, Hair/Mouth, Vito Acconci se remplit la bouche de la longue chevelure de Kathy Dillon, sa compagne. Le jeu de nausée dépassée existe là aussi. Les visages placés l’un au-dessus de l’autre nous font face en gros plan fixe. Le traitement du film en noir et blanc et au ralenti rappelle les vieux films muets et le retour lent et saccadé d’un souvenir. La scène est donc située dans le passé. Le titre signifie également « deux prises de vue ». La technique de l’image transforme la réalité qu’elle saisit. En opposant la couleur et le temps réel au noir et blanc filmé au ralenti, Vito Acconci suggère une antériorité de Hair/Mouth par rapport à Grass/Mouth. Ce que nous pouvons transcrire de la façon suivante : aujourd’hui je prends possession d’objets environnementaux, hier mes pulsions étaient dirigées vers des objets affectifs. Dans Two Takes, le lieu du corps privilégié est la bouche. Elle réfère à la psychologie et à la libido (pulsion sexuelle et pulsion de vie).

Le rapport de Vito Acconci à la performance ou au body art ne relève pas uniquement de l’expérimentation. Dans Two Takes, il utilise la vidéo, le corps et l’action pour une représentation de la pulsion. (Thérèse Beyler)

1970, 9:40 min, b&w, silent, Super 8 film. Acconci oftens performs controlled actions as if he had entered into a contractual agreement to test his physical limitations. In Grass/Mouth, Acconci ingests grass until he chokes; in Hair/Mouth, he fills his mouth with the hair from a woman’s head.

- ADER Bas Jan, I’m Too Sad to Tell You, 1970. (action-photo).

- ART WORKER’S COALITION, Art Workers Coalition Won’t Kiss Ass, 1970.

- ASKEVOLD David, Catapult, super 8 mm fil transferred to video. Color. Silent. 2.30 min.

- AVALANCHE, New York, no.1, Fall 1970. Publisher, Willoughby Sharp; Editor, Liza Bear.

The first major artist-produced periodical published in the U.S. reporting on post-object art and other new art activities. Published from 1970-1976.

- AZURDIA Margarita, Favor quitarse los zapatos (Please take off your shoes), 1970.

With her first performance, Azurdia became the Central American artist to participate in an international biennal with an individual performance. All that is left from this event ‘is a dark, blurred image of the artist who is barely visible, dimly lit by a small light’ (curator Virginia Perez-Ratton). This piece consisted in asking the public to take their shoes off and enter a cavernous wooden structure with a sand floor. Like other Latin American artists from the same period, such as Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica, Azurdia was interested in integrating the body of the public in the work, exploring sensorial capacities other than vision and expanding psychophysical awareness. Since this first performative experiment, she has continued to explore the earth element in her poetry and ritualistic dances.

- BALDESSARI John, Folding Hat, 1970, videotape. 15’, b/w.

- BALDESSARI John, The Excesses of Austerity and Minimalism, June 1971. Film, 3 mins.

Sheet of paper in typewriter on which the title is typed as fast as possible… etc.

- BEUYS Joseph, Arena, 1970.

« Who knows how far I would have gone if I had been intelligent!

Arena can be considered Beuys’ autobiographic work. It encompasses all the images of the most significant drawings and objects made by the artist during his first creative phase, but above all those which refer to his performances from the beginning of the sixties onward. Arena, the space of the tragedy in which the artist-hero presents himself, is an open work, a work in progress; Beuys intends to update it year by year for the rest of his life.

At present, the work is composed of 100 panels in aluminum and a sculpture in beeswax and copper. Each panel is 114 x 82 cm and contains, protected by thick plate glass, one or more photographs treated with Beuys’ favorite materials – that is, wax, margarine, red or gray pigment, acid, sulphur, and so on. The sculpture, placed in the center of the work, consists of two piles of wax and copper slabs, and a plastic container filled with lubricating oil. The sculpture is the fulcrum of Arena. For almost three hours, lying on the floor of the gallery, with a plant (whose alchemic name is VITEX AGNUS CASTUS) tied on his head, Beuys passed his right hand smeared with oil over the slabs of copper (the conductor), until his body vibrated with energy like a body charged with electric current. As he frequently repeats, ‘I am a transmitter, I emit!’ » (Lucio Amelio for Beuys)

- BEUYS Joseph, Filz-TV, 1970.

- BEUYS Joseph. Scottisch Symphonie, 1970 (fluxus)

- BRAND Heinz, Eat/Shit, 1970. Rio de Janeiro.

- BREAKWELL Ian, Episode in a Small Town Library, 1970.

- BREAKWELL Ian, HARVEY Mike & NICHOLS Mandy, Unword, 1970.

- BRUS Gunther, Zerreissprobe, 1970-72 (actionnisme)

- CHICAGO Judy, Boxing Ring, 1970.

- CHICAGO Judy, WILDING Faith & LESTER Jan, Cock & Cunt Play, 1970.

- COLLECTIVE KUMO, A Happening on the Street, 1970, Japon.

- COLETTE, Hommage à Delacroix, 1970.

- COLETTE, Street Work, 1970.

- CON Rob, The White Man, 1970.

- D’HOOGHE Alain, Art/Garbage, 1970-73.

« Shooting: first part, in Liège in April 1970, at the Galerie du Croissant d’or – second part, near Wavre in September during the period of a lively campaign to protest against the city’s expansion. In fact, a bulldozer driver said to me: “It’s useless, the population has finally won its cause, the city has decided to build a garbage incinerator.“

Should we now analyse the intentions which led me to make a film three years ago? I arrive at the gallery with this old movie camera. It’s a child’s game. We’ll shoot a film. No screenplay. Nothing. We ask people on the street, “Would you please drop off this garbage at the gallery, while…“ Their indolence revolts us. A heap of bricks, a construction they don’t dare blow up. The camera is running through our veins. A dog has shitted in the gallery. The smell of eyes popping out of heads. We are ready to roll on the ground while vomiting absolute words. In a word: NOTHING.

No screenplay, nothing.

Only then the camera starts shooting.

Like a profound initiation. The body shouts, twists, falters, explodes. But life goes on. Far from art, no doubt, but it’s life that counts. We hang some garbage out of the windows, old underpants, chairs. Empty bottles instead of the laundry. Space is in a state of chaos.

One hears the grinding of teeth, regurgitating manure that’s stirring and warming up, asphixiating but nonetheless virginal, the flashing images of an epoch which is passing from the liquid to the solid state. The spirit forms a rind and cheese is not absent from art. Camembert, brie, bleu… skull bones growing moldy invade everything. There’s a phallus breathing in the air. Perhaps there’s the idea of Heliogabalus who’s about a arrive. Or rather poetry. One makes love badly and is happy there is art in order to complete his ejaculation, in the absolute sense. Then one day, a woman and I, making love – but we don’t care any longer, our bodies clutched and rolled up, dismay in the depths of our eyes. The camera like a cold black dagger that gives us the shivers… It’s a jump into a car for initiates (about whom we’ll speak later), a car that darkens space, the latter seems to have been struck by a brain tumor. In the slippery night, where frogs are vomited… it’s the embarking of a woman still quite naked, a camera-priapus, a length of film, the brain of a spectral man who is shivering. We must shoot a film. It’s no use insisting. All have understood that everything started in the places where we are shooting. Nothing was foreseen. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 92-93)

- EXPORT Valie, Body Sign Action, Francfort. 1970.

In Francfurt, Export has a suspender belt tattooed on her thigh. « Body Sign Action zeigt das buch als extension des menschen bzw den menschen als symbol- und informationsträger für andere menschen. Auch der menschen ist ein medium der kommunikation, wir das kino » (V. E. Archiv) http://www.valieexport.at/en/valie-exports-home/

The tattooing of the body demonstrates the connection between ritual and civilization. Incorporated in a tattoo, the garter belt signifies a former enslavement, is a garment symbolizing repressed sexuality, an attribute of our non-self-determined womanhood. A social ritual that covers up a bodily need is unmasked, our culture’s opposition to the body is laid open. As a symbol of membership in a caste which demands conditioned behaviour, the garter belt becomes a memento. The female body peels off and discards the imprint of a world which has never been a woman’s world, in order to arrive at a human world in which women can autonomously define their existence. V. E.

The public tattooing of Valie Export on a stage in Frankfurt on 2 July 1970 exemplifies the radical character of her feminist art performances : a garter belt – a fetish of male sexual fantasies – is painfully, indelibly marked on her own body in order to disclose the functionalization and social role of the woman as sex object, and to reflect the social determination by males. At the same time, art is irrevocably engraved on her body.

- EXPORT Valie, Body Tape, 1970 (vidéo)

1. Touching – mit Händen auf glas. 2. Boxing. 3. Feeling – Gesicht auf Glas. 4. Hearing – Ohr auf Glas. 5. Tasting – Zunge auf Glas. 6. Pushing – mit Kopf auf Glasplatte schlagend. 7. Walking – Füsse auf Glas gehend (V. E. Archiv) http://www.valieexport.at/en/valie-exports-home/

Body Tape. 1970, 3:58 min, b&w, sound. In a series of witty, minimalist exercises that are introduced by inter-titles (Touching, Boxing, Feeling, Hearing, Tasting, and Walking), VALIE EXPORT explores the relationship between word and action.

- EXPORT Valie, Kontext – Variationen : Zustandsveränderungen Bedeutungsveränderungen, 1970-1971.

- EXPORT Valie, Mann und Frau und Animal, 1970 (1973 ?) (action-cinéma).

- EXPORT Valie, Split Reality, 1970. A COMPLETER
http://www.valieexport.at/en/valie-exports-home/

- F SPACE GALLERY. Irvine, California. Founded 1970/71. Excerpt from Moira Roth, « Toward a History of California Performance: Part Two, » Arts Magazine, v.52, June 1978, p.115:

The Irvine Students, not the faculty, were primarily responsible for establishing this campus as another central point for early Southern California Performance. The graduate art program at Irvine (University of California, Irvine Campus) began in 1969. By fluke or by fate, the first batch of students were shortly to become a seminal force in Los Angeles Performance. Performance artists who attended Irvine, then and later, include Barbara Smith, Chris Burden, Nancy Buchanan, Bob Wilhite, Brad Smith, and Richard Newton… in the main the Irvine School of Fine Arts felt ill at ease with the Performances which its graduates insisted on producing. So, to create an environment hospitable to their art, several students formed an off-campus cooperative gallery known as « F-Space, » located to Santa Ana’s industrial sector within notoriously conservative Orange County.

- FLUX-SPORTS, 17 février 1970, Old Gym, Douglass College, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Photos : Peter Moore.

- FOX Terry, — Cf. Terry Fox. San Francisco, Reese Palley, 1970.

An exhibition catalogue ; includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon.

- FOX Terry et BEUYS Joseph, Isolation Unit, Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Allemagne, 1970.

Fox made an action with sounds and iron pipes ; Beuys made an action that « was a kind of dream about a dead mouse he had, like a funeral. » A record was produced from this event. (Cf. Fox Terry. « Joseph Beuys and Terry Fox : Action/Fotodokumentation », Interfunktionen 6, Cologne, September 71, pp. 34-54)

« On November 24 (1970) at 7 p.m., after spending four hours alone together in the cellar of the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie, Joseph Beuys and Terry Fox carried out Isolation Unit, a half hour performance, for an audience of about thirty friends. The event acted as a requiem for a pet mouse kept by Beuys for three years which had just died. Clad in his special felt suit, (a Block multiple) Beuys gave the mouse a ride on a tape recorder reel, and then stood gently cradling it in one hand while he ate an exotic fruit and spat the seeds into a silver bowl. A 33 rpm record, with Beuys on one side and Fox on the other, has been made of the event. » « Rumbles ; Exhibitions, Terry Fox » Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, p. 5. Description of Isolation Unit. Excerpt.

(Fox) « I came to Dusseldorf and I wanted to do something, to make an action, and I didn’t have th espace. So I went to Beuys and met him the first time and he showed me all the rooms of the Academy where i twas possible to make an action. Then we went to the cella rand i twas wonderful there : so I decided to make an action with sounds and iron pipes (like bells) in the cellar because the sound was very good there. One or two days before he asked me to do something together and he made something too. But I didn’t ask him what he was going to do. His action was a kind of dream about a dead mouse he had, like a funeral for the mouse together with the sound, and fire, and ashes. Beuys too made sounds, we have a record we made of them. » (Terry Fox, extrait : Achille Bonito Oliva, « Terry Fox », Domus, April 1973, p. 45.)

- FOX Terry, Asbestos Tracking, Reese Palley Gallery. Monday May 18. 1970.

— Willoughby Sharp, « Body Works : A Pre-Critical, Non-Definitive Survey of Very Recent Work Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, pp. 14-17. Extrait :

« During the morning of Monday May 18, just prior to the opening of his one-man show at the Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco, Terry Fox executed a three-part piece Asbestos Tracking. In one part, Skipping, he laid down a broken line of black foot marks on the gray concrete floor… »

— Cf. « Galleries : Reese Palley, San Francisco », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, p. 11. Includes a photo of a Terry Fox installation/exhibition at Reese Palley, May 18/June 13, 1970. Works shown in photo : Pusten, A Sketch of Impacted Lead, and Asbestos Tracking.

- FOX Terry, A Sketch for Impacted Lead, Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970.

« I wanted to do a work with lead using physical forces, and I thought of bullets. When a bullet is fired through the barrel of a riffle, it spins at an incredible rate, moving forward faster than the speed of sound. On impact, the lead changes its shape, just from the pure force of that energy. Hopefully the way I’m going to execute this piece at the Reese Palley Gallery is to fire the bullets close together in a straight horizontal line. Then they might form a small, fragile bar of lead. » Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51. Essay on Fox, illlustrated with photos by Barry Klinger of Fox’s works : Free Flying Polyethylene Sheet (1969), Defloration Piece (1970), Air Pivot (1970), Liquid Smoke (1970), A Sketch for Impacted Lead (1970), What Do Blind Men Dream ? (1970), Push Piece (1970). (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

- FOX Terry, Breath, San Francisco, 1970. Super 8 film. 3 mins., color.

- FOX Terry, Celler, 1970, Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco.

- FOX Terry, Corner Push, 1970. Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco.

- FOX Terry, Defoliation Piece, University Art Gallery, Berkeley, Ca., 1970.

Fox with flame thrower burns rare flowers before an unsuspecting audience. « This was my first political work. I wanted to destroy the flowers in a very calculating way. By burning a perfect rectangle right in the middle, it would look as though someone had destroyed them on purpose. The flowers were Chinese jasmin planted five years ago which were to bloom in two years. It was also a theatrical piece. Everyone likes to watch fires. It was making a beautiful roaring sound. But at a certain point people realized what was going on - the landscape was being violated; flowers were being burnt. Suddenly everyone was quiet. One woman cried for twenty minutes. » Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51. (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

— Carl E. Loeffler, ‘‘From the Body into Space: Post-Notes on Performance Art in Northern California,’’ in Performance Anthology. Source Book of California Performance Art. Updated Edition, Edited by Carl E. Loeffler and Darlene Tong, Last Gasp Press and Contemporary Arts Press, San Francisco, 1989 (First Edition : 1980), p.369-389. Excerpt on Terry Fox :

‘‘A sense of heightened awareness is recurrent in Fox’s work, notably in Defoliation Piece (1970) where he burned a bed of rare plants in front of the University Art Museum, Berkeley, as his piece for the exhibition, The Eighties. Fox recalls, ‘‘This was my first political work… It was also a theatrical piece. Everyone likes to watch fires. It was making a roaring sound, but at a certain point people realized what was going on – the landscape was being violated; flowers were being burnt. Suddenly everyone was quiet. One woman cried for 20 minutes.’’ [9] Fox perceives the literalness of these works as the artist-element performing elemental gestures with other elements in order to explore new levels of consciousness. In this new sense of ‘‘theatre,’’ there are no formal controls because the elements are amorphous. Fox says he is ‘‘only conscious of how a piece looks when (he sees) the photographs’’ of it or the residual marks.’’

- FOX Terry, Impacted Lead, 1970, Third Street, San Francisco.

- FOX Terry, Levitation, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, Ca., 1970.

Fox attempts to levitate while lying upon ½ tons of earth in the middle of a circle holding four clear polyethylene tubes filled with blood, urine, milk, and water. Afterwords there was an imprint of his body on the earth.

— McCann Cecile N. « Autority and Art (Again) », Artweek, v. 1, October 3, 1970, p. 2. Article describes Terry Fox’s Levitation at the Richmond Art Center, Richmond, Ca., on September 17, 1970, and the ensuing problems with Richmond City Administration officials who declared the work a fire and health hazard and ordered it to be removed from the gallery by curator Tom Marioni.

— McCann Cecile N. « Terry Fox Sculpture », Artweek, v. 1, May 30, 1970, p. 1. Review of an installation/performance at the Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco, in which Fox works with four elements : earth, air, fire and water. Excerpts : « An important aspect of Fox’s work, as Willoughby Sharp pointed out in an excellent catalogue essay, is that : « The inspiration for much of Fox’s work stems from direct perception and heightened awareness of ordinary events. » (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

— « Terry Fox…’I Wanted My Mood to Affect Their Looks’ », Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, pp. 70-81. An interview. Extrait :

(Fox, on his work Levitation) : I wanted to create a space that was conductive to levitation. The first thing I did was to cover the sixty by thirty foot floor with white paper and to tape write paper on the walls. The floor had been dark, but it became such a brilliant white that if you were at one end of it, it glared, it hurt your eyes to look at someone standing at the other end. I twas such as buoyant space that anyone in it was already walking on air. Then I laid down a ton and a half of dirt, taken from under a freeway on Army Street, in an eleven and a half foot square. The mold was made with four redwood planks each twice my body height – I used my body as a unit of measure for most of the elements in this piece. The dirt was taken from the freeway because of the idea of explosion. When the freeway was built, the earth was compressed, held down. You can conceive of it expanding when you release it rising, becoming buoyant. Of course, it’s physically impossible. But for me the mere suggestion was enough. I was trying to rise too. I fasted to empty myself… I drew a circle in the middle of the dirt with my own blood. His diameter was my height. According to the medieval notion, that creates a magic space. Then I lay on my back in the middle of the circle, holding clear polyethylene tubes filled blood, urine, milk, and water. They represented the elemental fluids that I was expelling from my body. I lay there for six hours with the tubes in my hand trying to levitate. The doors were locked. Nobody saw me. I didn’t move a muscle. I didn’t close my eyes. I tried not to change my focal point… »

‘‘Levitation (1970) is another example in which the residue of the work documents the use of Fox’s body to make an action. Levitation was presented at the Richmond Art Center by Tom Marioni who was Curatorial Director at the time. Fox created a situation conductive to levitation. After covering the entire floor with white paper, he created a square mound with one and a half tons of dirt taken from a freeway construction site. Drawing a circle with his own blood and holding four tubes filled with blood, urine, milk, and water ‘‘to represent the elemental fluids’’ of the body, Fox lay there for ‘‘six hours… trying to levitate.’’ There was no audience present in the gallery, and the doors were locked. Fox describes the experience.

I was trying to think about leaving the ground, until I realized I should be thinking about trying to enter the air. For me that changed everything, made it work, I mean, I levitated. After the fourth hour I couldn’t feel any part of my body, not even my chest expanding and contracting. My legs and arms were probably asleep. I felt I was somewhere else. I’d gone. I’d left my body. Then something weird happened. A fly started buzzing around, and I thought I was the fly. That hallucination didn’t last very long, but the feeling of being out my body persisted for about two hours.

Afterwards, an imprint of Fox’s body remained in the dirt, and a sense of charged energy filled the gallery. Fox says he considers Levitation his ‘‘strongest piece of sculpture because the whole room was energized. You didn’t have to trip over the piece, you felt it the minute you walked in.’’ The work proved to be extremely controversial, and subsequently was ordered closed by the city of Richmond’s chief of Police, Fire Inspector, and Health Inspector on the basis that it was an ‘‘obvious’’ fire hazard; they claimed that the paper placed underneath the dirt to protect the floor was highly flammable.’’

- FOX Terry, Liquid Smoke, Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970.

(Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

« Throwing liquid smoke against the wall was really an anarchistic gesture, like throwing a Molotov cocktail. But it wasn’t really that at all. As soon as the glass vial exploded on the cement, it became an aesthetic event. Exposed to the air, the liquid began to smoke until it had completely evaporated. I twas so extraordinary and so unrelated to any previous ideas you had about that material that it became art. You would never think of a cement wall smoking, and to see it happening was stunning. » (Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51.)

- FOX Terry, Opening Hand, 1970, Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco.

- FOX Terry, Push Piece, Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970.

« When we were moving Tom (Marioni?) out of his studio, I noticed a brick wall in an alley. I went over and started feeling it. Then I started pushing. When I did that, I realized what that wall was, what material strength it had. I don’t think I could say what that meant to me right now. » (Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51.)

— « Terry Fox…’I Wanted My Mood to Affect Their Looks’ », Avalanche, no. 2, Winter 1971, pp. 70-81. An interview. Excerpt :

« (Avalanche) : What do you see as your earliest body work ?

(Fox) : The Push Wall piece. I twas like having a dialogue with the wall, exchanging energy with it. I pushed as hard as I could for about eight or nine minutes, until I was too tired to push anymore…

(Avalanche) : What other work out of that…

(Fox) : Pushing myself into a corner at Reese Palley in San Francisco. That was the negative of the Push Wall piece. A corner is the opposite of a wall. That was a short piece, it was hard to do. I was trying to push as much as of my body as I could into the corner. My feet got in the way. I tried to stand on my toes, but I didn’t work. You lose your balance. »

— (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

- FOX Terry, Rain, New York, 1970. Super 8 film. 3 mins., b/w.

- FOX Terry, Soluble Fish, 1970, Under the Pont Neuf, Paris.

- FOX Terry, Sound: Bowl, Water, Shovel, 1970, MOCA, San Francisco.

- FOX Terry, Sweat, 1970. Super 8 film. 3 mins., b/w.

- FOX Terry, Tonguings, New York. 1970. Videotape, 30 mins.

Reflecting a duality typical of the body-based video of the 1970s, Tonguings is at once conceptuel and sensual. The viewer sees Fox’s open mouth in extreme close-up, as he proceeds through an exhaustive demonstration of positions of the tongue in relation to the lips.

- FOX Terry, Wall Push, 1970, MOCA, San Francisco.

- FOX Terry, What Do Blind Men Dream ?, Reese Palley Gallery. San Francisco. 1970.

« This was the second in a series of Public Theater events. I discovered a beautiful blind lady and asked her to sing on a San Francisco street corner near a gigantic open pit, from 5:30 p.m. until dark. Announcements were send out and a lot of people came. We made a recording of the work that I still have. » Willougby Sharp. « Elemental Gestures : Terry Fox », Arts Magazine, vol. 44, May 1970, pp. 48-51. (See also Terry Fox. San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970. An exhibition catalogue includes a short essay by Willoughby Sharp and five pages of photographs of Amsterdam from July 19, 1968, 11 A.M.-Noon)

- FOX Terry, Virtual Volume, 1970, MOCA, San Francisco.

- FRIED Howard, ALLMYDIRTYBLUECLOTHES, San Francisco : Reese Palley, 1970.

Catalogue of an exhibition, June 16-July 11, 1970. Text is divided into « accumulation », « establishment », and « disestablisment » ». Excerpt from « establishment » :

« Formerly, my blue clothing and the symbols that best identify them to me were in a position of constant arbitration. My object is to retire the elements of this piece and protect them from unsolicited physical arbitration. By tieing the clothing one to the next and by drawing the symbols on the wall, a gesture to finalize their arrangement is made. Simply placing the clothes and symbols in a room wouldn’t reduce their mobility sufficiently. A shirt might be kicked across the room or symbols might be rearranged altering the function of the clothing and/or the meaning of the symbols. While a tied shirt might be untied and then kicked across the room, this would be in conscious and direct violation of my implicit intentions which are apparent both in the performance and the resulting piece. A minor rearrangement such as a chance kick without first untieing the clothes would not castrate my intention or after the piece’s function. A more drastic measure to render the relationship static would only serve to enunciate my intent while actually still failing to achieve it since total control is impossible. »

— Jean Jaszi, « Allmydirtyblueclothes », Artweek, v. 1, June 27, 1970, p. 3. Review for a performance at Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco. Extrait :

« Howard Fried wrote about his work, « The subject of the performance and the resultant piece is all my dirty blue clothes and those symbols which best identify these clothes to me. These symbols are letters of the English alphabet and arabic numerals ». Fried arranged the clothes on the floor and marked the symbols on the wall in a carefully reasoned sequence… In summing up his description of the work « Allmydirtyblueclothes » Howard Fried also stated : « Everyactionisapotentialmistake ». »

- GILBERT & GEORGE, Singing Sculpture, 1970.

- GRAHAM Dan, Body Press, 1970-73.

Two film makers stand (within a surrounding and completely mirrorized cylinder), body trunk stationary, hands holding and pressing a camera’s back end flush to, while slowly rotating it about the surface cylinder of their individual bodies. One rotation circumscribes the body’s contour, spiralling slightly upward with the next turn. With successive rotations, the body surface areas are completely covered by the back of the camera(s) until the cameraman’s eye level it reached; then a reverse mapping downward begins until the original starting point is reached. The rotations are at corresponding speeds; when each camera is rotated to each body’s rear, it is facing and filming the other as they are exchanged, so the camera’s “identity“ “changes hands“ and each performer is handling a new camera. The camera are of different size. In the process, the performers are to concentrate on the coexistent, simultaneous identity of the camera describing them and their body. To the spectator, the camera may or may not read as an extension of the body’s identity.

Optically, the two cameras film the image reflected on the mirror, which is the image of the surface(s) of the lens, the camera’s visible sides, the body of the performer, and (possibly) his eyes on the mirror. The camera’s angle of orientation/view of area of the mirror’s reflective image is determined by the placement of the camera on the body contour at a given moment. (The camera might be pressed against the chest but such an upward angle shows head and eyes).

Projection of film: the films are projected at the same time on two loop projectors, very large size, on two opposite, but close, room walls. A member of the audience (man or woman) might identify with one image ot the other from the same camera or can identify with one body or the other, shifting his/her view each time to face the other screen when cameras are exchanged.

To the spectator the camera’s optical vantage is the skin – there is no space. The performer’s musculature is also “seen“ pressing into the surface of the body (pulling inside out). At the same time, kinesthetically, the handling of the camera can be “felt“ by the spectator as surface tension for the hidden side of the camera presses and slides against the skin it covers at a particular moment. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 110-111)

- GRAHAM Dan, Roll, 1970.

Shortly after Homes of America the human body begins to feature in Graham’s work, starting with the artist’s own body in the video’s Roll (1970) and Body Press (1970-72). In these works graham filmed – in the first person so to speak – rolling through the autumn leaves in Central Park (Roll), while the second video (Body Press) registers the same action from an external point of view. The videos in turn are projected on separate walls, forcing the spectator into yet amother point-of-view of the event. This relation between spectator/partiticipant and the event itself can be found in many of the works.

Dan Graham second-guessed the supposed objectivity of the camera by giving the device to actors who performed simple movements (rolling across the floor, circling one another).

(Filming Process. 1970, André Goeminnie, Nazareth, Belgique)

- HENDERSON Mel, Event for Sound Sculpture As, MOCA San Francisco. 1970.

Event for Sound Sculpture As consisted of pacing up and down MOCA (Museum of Conceptual Art) with a 30 caliber rifle and firing a single shot at a projected image of a tiger.

- HENTZ Mike, Performances, Années 70.

- HERSCHMAN Lynn, Roberta Breitmore, 1970-79.

— Jack Chipman, « Lynn Lester Hershmann/An Interview, » Artweek, v.3, July 1, 1972, p. 2. An interview with Hershman about her ideas on art and her use of multi-media. Extrait:

« J.C.: Are you a multi-media artist?

L.H.: I don’t know, I use whatever means I have access to to get my message across. I like idea of having freedom and flexibility in terms of different way of working. I don’t like to be limited to only one means of expression. I’d like to use all the types of media eventually, including video tape. It’s a vocabulary. It’s like learning a different language – once you have the facility, you can say what you want without any problem…

J.C.: It sounds like you’re into conceptual art. Will you ultimately abandon the object?

L.H.: No, I think objects are important. Besides there are objects in conceptual art. They’re part of the documentation process. But, I don’t consider myself a conceptual artist. »

— Lynn Hershmann, « Roberta Breitmore: An Alchemical Portrait Begun in 1975 », La Mamelle Magazine: Art Contemporary, no.5, 1976, pp.24-27. Text and photo documentation regarding the identity of Roberta Breitmore. Excerpt:

« Brief statement

ROBERTA BREITMORE is a portrait of alienation and loneliness. Her performance takes on the form of a real life drama based on real life., in real time. Her alteration is kept to a minimum. As Roberta becomes more real, the people she meets become fictionized types. The identities of the people Roberta meets are never revealed.She operates as would a sociologist, interviewing and noting reactions of the people who respond to her. She is, in effect, a mirror-magnet for a sector of San Francisco’s community. »

- HORN Rebecca, Arm-Extensionen, 1970.

- HORN Rebecca, Cornucopia-Seance for Two Breasts, 1970.

A poetical construction that makes one think of a fabulous nurse machine, of a creative form lending the nourishing function of the female body a meaning that also comprehends the self-referentialism of the adult. From this perspective, the idea of self-nourishment takes on a vital dimension whose other, more constricting side is revealed by the usage of the black tape and the ligature with the head. Mythological figure, poetical construction and purpose – free object – these attibutes of so many of Rebecca Horn’s works can be associated with this object, which bears a close relation to the performances shown in the films « Performances I », 1972, and « Performances II », 1973.

- HORN Rebecca, Overflowing Blood Machine, 1970.

- HORN Rebecca, Unicorn, 1970-72.

Unicorn is one of Horn’s best known performances pieces. I twas one of a series of performances concerned with the cultural aspects of the numerous body extensions thematized throughout her career collectively presented in the films Performances I, 1972, and Performances II, 1973. ‘Einhorn’ (‘Unicorn’) – super 8mm, color, 12 minutes – tells of a woman who walks through the countryside for 12 hours with the ‘Unicorn’ object on her head and demonstrates Horn’s interest in the poetical/mythological figures.

In the shimmering heat

In the billowing field

A small white point

Moves towards you…

- Rebecca Horn –

The woman is described by Horn as ‘very bourgeois’, ’21 years-old and ready to marry. She is spending her money on new bedroom furniture’, walks through a field and forest on a summer morning wearing only a white horn protruding directly from the front of the top of her head and the straps holding it there. These straps are almost identical to the ones worn in Frida Kahlo’s painting Broken Column. The image, with wheat floating around the woman’s hips, is simultaneously mythic and modern.

The unicorn was a medieval symbol for purity, chastity and innocence. The German title Einhorn also contains a pun on the artist’s name. This work was designed for a performance by a friend of the artist. Horn wrote: « The performanc took place in early morning – still damp, intensely bright – the sun more challenging than any audience… her consciousness electrically impassioned; nothing could stop her transe-like journey: in competition with every tree and cloud in sight… and the blossoming wheat caressing her hips. » This account emphasizes both graceful movement and the element of self-exposure that is often found in Horn’s work. (September 2004)

- James McCready, Paul Kos, Terry Fox. Richmond, California: Richmond Art Center, 1970. (catalogue)

Catalogue for three exihibited selections of the 1970 Sculpture Annual. Includes Introduction by curator, Tom Marioni. Also includes three loose pages; one designed by each selected artist. Excerpt:

« The sculpture selected for this annual by Larry Bell reflects an attitude about the direction many serious sculptors have taken. Two of the three works selected are not tangible objects; they are concepts. James McCready’s photo of old St. Mary’s Church burning documents what I feel to be environmental theatre and is a ‘City Work.’ Although he did not set fire to the church, he has selected the event as an environmental sculpture. The documented proof is entered for exhibition in the form of a photo, since the actual work can no longer be seen.

Paul Kos has submitted for exhibition a kinetic work that involves people, money, checks, banks and the Art Center. This work also falls into the category of theatre-oriented sculpture called ‘Process Art,’ where the acting out of the instructions submitted by the artist becomes the work of art. (Fox’s) piece submitted is a 9’ x 24’ length of thin plastic sheeting blowing accross the floor of the artist’s studio with the help of an electric fan. »

- JONAS Joan, Mirror Check, 1970 (action) Ace Gallery. Los Angeles.

In her performance piece Mirror Check (1970), Jonas stood nude with a small, round mirror and examined details of her body looking into the entire time, seeing ‘a succession of places unfolding in time’, while the audience watched from a distance of thirty feet. The audience, unable to see the reflected images, had to experience them vicariously through Jonas’s description and reactions. Jonas has said, « It’s the shamanistic idea – the performer goes through the actions so that the audience can experience them also. It takes you into a space that you wouldn’t otherwise be in ». The artist was greatly struck by the discrepancies between what the mirror, the camera and the viewer saw. In her performance piece Mirror Check (1970), Jonas stood nude with a small, round mirror and examined details of her body looking into the entire time, seeing ‘a succession of places unfolding in time’, while the audience watched from a distance of thirty feet. The audience, unable to see the reflected images, had to experience them vicariously through Jonas’s description and reactions. Jonas has said, « It’s the shamanistic idea – the performer goes through the actions so that the audience can experience them also. It takes you into a space that you wouldn’t otherwise be in ». The artist was greatly struck by the discrepancies between what the mirror, the camera and the viewer saw.

- JOSEPH Carol, Living Room, 1970.

- KAPROW Allan, A Sweet Wall, 1970. Block Galerie. Berlin.

- KAPROW Allan, Days Off: A Calendar of Happenings. New York: The Junior Council of the Museum of Modern Art, 1970. Newsprint calendar of Happenings photographs.

The Introduction: This is a calendar of past events. The days on it are the days of the Happenings. They were days off. People played. Each day is a page, or more, that can be taken off and thrown away. The Happenings were throw-aways. Once only. Nothing left – except maybe thoughts. Photos and programs of such events are leftover thoughts in the form of gossip. And gossip is also play. For anybody. As the calendar is discarded like the Happenings, the gossip may remain in action.

- KAPROW Allan, Don’t, 1970. Los Angeles County Parks Dept. Californie.

- KAPROW Allan, Graft, 1970. Kent State University. Ohio.

- KAPROW Allan, Level, 1970. Aspen. Colorado.

- KAPROW Allan, Pose…, NYC : Multiples, Inc., 1970. Artist book.

- KAPROW Allan, Publicity, 1970. California Arts. Burbank. Californie.

- KAPROW Allan, Sawdust, 1970. Cologne. (Kölnischer Verein).

- KAPROW Allan, Tire Environment, 1970. expo. Happening & Fluxus, Cologne. photo. Geoffrey Hendricks.

- KLAUKE Jürgen, Boddys, 1970-2000.

- KLAUKE Jürgen, Ich + Ich, 1970-2000.

- KNOWLES Alison as Gorilla, Flux-Mass, 1970.

17 février 1970. Voorhees Chapel, Douglass College. Photo : Das Anudas.

- KOS Paul, Quid Pro Quo, Process Sculpture, 1970, Richmond Art Center, Richmond. Ca.

Kos’ contribution to the Annual 1970 catalogue, James McCready, Paul Kos, Terry Fox.

« Remove the ‘object’ in art, or so de-objectivity it, that the passing of money between patron and artist becomes the art. Process becomes art. Patron becomes artist. Artist becomes patron. Banks become museums.

1. Cut out above checks.

2. Fill in your appropriate banking information.

3. Inscribe any amount of money you desire, which may be charged to your account.

4. Endorse the check.

5. Your cancelled check will be your art. Not valid unless cancelled.

6. I will in turn send you a check for the exact amount you need me.

7. Mail to : ‘non-object’ Paul Kos

c/o Richmond Art Center

Richmond, California. 94804

8. Your check will be exhibited in Richmond’s Sculpture Annual, and deposited in my account at show’s close, at which time you will receive your ‘cancelled art’, and the check from me for the same amount. » (Performance Anthology. Source Book of California Performance Art. Updated Edition, Edited by Carl E. Loeffler and Darlene Tong, Last Gasp Press and Contemporary Arts Press, San Francisco, 1989 (First Edition : 1980)

- KOS Paul, Event for Sound Sculpture As, MOCA San Francisco. 1970.

utilizing 11 boom microphones to record the sound of two pound blocks of melting ice.

- LA PIETRA Ugo, Commutatore, 1970.

- LE VA Barry, Velocity Piece #2, La Jolla Museum of Art. L.A.,1970 :

— « One of Le Va’s more recent works was his contribution to ‘projections : Anti-Materialism’ at La Jolla Museum of Art, which consisted of the artist running at top speed along a fifty-foot room and throwing his body into the far wall as hard and as long as he could stand it. Besides the physical activity and strain of the work, which resembled an athletic event – Le Va succeeded in leaving his mark on the wall. » (— Willoughby Sharp, « New Directions in Southern California Sculpture », Arts Magazine, v. 44, Summer 1970, p. 38. Discussion of Barry Le Va’s « body sculptures » although a major part of the article discusses more traditionnal L.A. sculptors, such as Robert Irwin and Larry Bell. Excerpt.)

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish), Pissing. MOCA. San Francisco.
1970.

Performed in the MOCA series Sound Sculpture As, Marioni after drinking beer all day pissing into a tub and « the sound pitch went down as the water level went up. »

— In the late sixties Tom Marioni, using the pseudonym Allan Fish, created an artwork consisting of himself and three friends eating a six-course dinner at the opening of the Walnut Creek Art Center exhibition 6x6x6. The dirty dishes and empty wine bottles were left on exhibit to underscore his assertion that it was the activity which constituted the art and that the material residue was only a document. This dialectic between the art act and the art object has remained a constant issue in Marioni’s work. While serving as curator at the Richmond Art Center (Richmond, California, 1968-1971), Marioni adopted the artistic alter-ego Allan Fish in order to separate his identity as an artist from that as a curator. During these years at Richmond he became associated with a small group of artists because of his extremely innovative and controversial curatorial attitude. For example, under Marioni’s curatorship, Terry Fox, one of the key figures in the development of performance art in San Francisco, produced a seminal work, « Levitation, » (1971) in which he lay on a mound of dirt in the gallery holding tubes of blood, urine, milk and water (symbolic of elemental bodily fluids being expelled from his body) in a metaphoric attempt to release his spirit from his physical being. Works such as these outraged the Richmond officials, and Marioni was forced to resign. Well before « Levitation, » however, Marioni sensed that his curatorial career at Richmond might be short-lived. As a result he founded the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA) in San Francisco in 1970, one of the first « alternative » museum anywhere. MOCA soon became the center for situational art (art conceived for a particular place) as well as performance art, a form which has subsequently involved many Bay Area artists.

Since the establishment of MOCA, Marioni has no longer felt a conflict between his role as curator (he has remained curator/director of MOCA and his role as an artist. He sees them as two sides of his art-making, MOCA representing the public and social aspect of his work while his own actions or performances constitute the more personal. Marioni allied himself with artists of his generation in San Francisco such as Fox, Howard Fried, Paul Kos and Bonnie Sherk, who, as conceptual/performance/video artists were primarily concerned with the art process or idea while de-emphasizing the art object. These Bay Area artists were developing their attitudes in the late sixties, concurrent with New York artists such as Vito Acconci and Dennis Oppenheim and European artists Joseph Beuys and Daniel Buren. As Ursula Meyer points out in her book Conceptual Art (New York, E. P. Dutton, 1972), « In a certain sense the artist performing replaces the traditional object of art-that is to say that, in performance, artist and art object merge. » Marioni and Fox, however, preferred to use the German term aktion (action) to describe their work in order to stress the activity, the artist’s interaction with an audience and materials, and to avoid the theatrical associations inherent in the term performance. (Constance Lewallen)

- MARIONI Tom (as Allan Fish). The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art, Oakland Museum of Art, 1970.

« From 1969 on I have made performances.

I was interested in the act that took place because there was no static object as a result. The only static object might be a case of empty beer bottles for one thing, left as a record of some kind of activity.

In 1969 I had to have a way to exhibit because I felt like exhibiting. It was too politically complicated to try to exhibit my work and be a curator at the same time for a combinaison of reasons which are probably obvious. So I had to exhibit under another name. I created a fictitious character., Allan Fish. And when it was no longer necessary to be concerned about those things, then I announced, by way of the transformation piece, that I was Allan Fish. The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art was the first Allan Fish one-man show. It took place at the Oakland Museum. I invited 21 of my friends to come and drink beer at the museum. And 16 people were there. All of the people were sculptors except Werner Jepson, the music composer. We got drunk in the museum together and the debris that was left over was exhibited as documentation of that activity – empty beer cans and cigarette butts, just morning after kind of debris. it was to exxagerate the concept of the act being the art and the documentation being just a record of the real activity.

Last summer I did a piece called Allan Fish Drinks a Case of Beer, which had to do with creating a situation, an environment, while becoming increasingly more intoxicated over about an eight hour period. The Reese Pailey Gallery bought a case of Becks beer for me. I put it in the refrigerator, and had the refrigerator in the gallery. I had all the things in the gallery that I needed to be comfortable. I had a TV set, my easy chair, a tape recorder, a refrigerator, and a can opener hanging down on a string from the ceiling. To separate myself from people that came into the gallery, I ran thread at about a 30° angle across the wall. The thread was white for the first foot, and then it was black across the room, and then it was white for the last foot against the wall. I looked like thin black lines floating, the kind of lines you see on your TV screen when you get disturbance. I tried to create an image with lines across it that would serve as a barrier. The lines also served as a screen, a projection of everything that was in the room, tending to make it all two-dimensional, as in a painting. I also had my conga drum there. I played my conga drum while the tape recorder, the radio, and the television set and the phonograph records were all playing simultaneously. I had a barrage of noise. Later in the day, as I was very drunk, those were the kinds of sounds I needed to keep me going. At a point when I was very drunk, I drew lines on the right side of my face and the left side of my face that suggested the contours of my own face moving around the left side of my face, so that it appeared, as in Futurist paintings, that I was moving fast when I couldn’t move fast. To compensate, I drew these lines to make it look like I was moving faster thant I was. I went to scotland and did five pieces, on each day for five days at the Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh. I amplified the sound of making drawings.

The first day I did a drumming piece which was made up of four 45 minute segments of drumming. Forty-five minutes was the length of the tape on my cassette recorder. I recorded 45 minutes of drumming with steel drum brushes on a sheet of blue plastic. Then I put the tape recorder inside the drum and drummed a duet with myself for the second 45-minute section. Then I repeated the process for two 45-minutes segments after that. The second day was a saturday, and it was the day of the biggest soccer game of the year on TV. I realized that people would stay at home to watch the event rather than come to the gallery, so I asked the gallery to rent à color TV and shows the game between Scotland and England. I had a refrigerator ful of free beer in the gallery available to people. I lettered the words “free beer“ on the outside of the refrigerator and had the refrigerator facing the TV, one at each end of the room. The third day was a sunday. I did a violin piece. I played my violin and did a drawing with the rosin from the bow. I cut a piece of brown paper to fit underneath the strings, and I bowed one harmonic note for 25 minutes.

Then as the bow went across the string, the rosin drifted off the string down onto the piece of paper. On Monday, I did a vertical line drawing until the pencil was used up. I put the microphone in the corner of the room under the paper. The paper was stapled to the wall and ran down and across the floor like a giant scroll. It was a roll of tracing paper. I stood on the paper in my stockinged feet and drew a line with the pencil from under my legs to the corner of the room ans then up the wall as far as I could reach. »

(see Lea Vergine, p. 143-145)

In a Museum gallery, Marioni drank beer with friends and the remaining residue was the exhibition on view

— (Cf. Tom Marioni, Beer, Art & Philosophy, Crown Point Press, 2004. Writing on Art. Tom Marioni. 1969-1999, Crown Point Press, 2000).

« …work by Allan Fish… celebrated the artist’s contention that « the Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art. » Created one Monday afternoon when the museum was closed to the public, a pile of empty beer cans, torn papers and cigarette butts – a contemporary midden of sorts – testified to the involment of some twenty artists in a minor rite of creation-destruction-consomption. » (— Cecile N. McCann, « Fish’s Beer-Based Concept », Artweek, v. 1. November 7, 1970. Brief description.)

‘‘The documenting residue of an artist’s ritual was integral to The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art (1970), a work by Tom Marioni, who at the time was exhibiting under the name Allan Fish [10] In an interview Marioni states:

It took place at the Oakland Museum. I invited 21 of my friends to come and drink beer at the museum. And 16 people were there. All the people were sculptors except for Werner Jepson, the music composer. We got drunk in the museum together and the debris that was left over was exhibited as documentation of that activity – empty beer cans and cigarette butts, just morning after kind of debris. It was to exaggerate the concept of the act being the art and the documentation being a record of the real activity. [11]’’

[10] Tom Marioni worked and exhibited art under the alias Allan Fish from 1968-71 because he considered that ‘‘being a curator was politically too complicated – to be an artist and a curator [was also too complicated]… because nobody sees you seriously as an artist… I [am] an artist who happened to be a curator rather than the other way around.’’ (Carl E. Loeffler, ‘‘Tom Marioni… In Conversation,’’ Art Contemporary, San Francisco, Spring 1976, p.3.)

[11] Hilla Futterman, ‘‘Activity as Sculpture: Tom Marioni Discusses His Work…’’ Art and Artists, London, August, 1973, p.18.

- MARIONI Tom, The Museum of Conceptual Art, 1970-72.

‘‘In 1970, Marioni founded the Museum of Conceptual Art, a museum for ‘‘actions not objects’’ with a permanent collection based on residue, relics, and created environments that became part of the building’s architecture. MOCA was a social work for Marioni, and altough it was a first in the now widely popular notion of the alternative space, he didn’t regard it as alternative because it was a museum and part of the ‘‘establishment right from the beginning.’’ In an interview with this author conducted in 1976, Marioni described MOCA:

CL: Maybe we can start from a point of defining the Museum of Conceptual Art.

TM: Well, I can’t describe what it is now because it’s in a phasing out kind of period. I can say what was my intention when I started it. It was to make a museum. It wasn’t necessarily to make an alternative art space because I wouldn’t have called it a museum, if I wanted to make an alternative space. I wanted it to be part of the establishment right from the beginning because I had come from working in museums when I was in art school in Cincinnati. I worked in the Cincinnati Art Museum as an assistant to the curator of the contemporary gallery and museum and that formed my interest in museum work. So then much later, after I had been an artist for ten years or so, I happened to get a job at Richmond Art Center as curator and that changed my whole outlook. It gave me a kind of social position, more so than a private one, like being concerned with getting things to the public. So it changed my whole attitude. After I was at Richmond for two years, I decided to start my own museum because there were things I couldn’t do at Richmond. Even though I did some things that were adventurous, experimental, I still didn’t do the things as far out as I wanted to, so I started my own space. Also, it looked as though I was going to get canned. So, in 1970, I started MOCA as a museum, and the reason I started it as a museum is because I was museums oriented. I was a museum person, so it was a museum for actions instead of objects. That’s is the difference between MOCA and traditional museums. But basically the definition of a museum is a place that houses and preserves works, you know, things. It was a collection. If it doesn’t have a collection, it isn’t a museum technically. So the collection consisted of documentation which I never exhibited. But the documentation was records of art activity like documents, films, videotapes, and all that, and later I moved across the street to the space we’re in right now. I was over there at 86 Third Street from ‘70 to ‘72.

Since that time the collection has included relics, residues from actions taken place in here and environments built into the space, and places that were used as performing spaces. So that now the collection consists of things that have become a part of the architecture of the building. So that the works can’t be moved. When the building gets torn down by the Redevelopment Agency the works of art will be destroyed too, you know, so they’re public works of art. They’re truly public because they can’t be owned, they can’t be moved. They’re going to be destroyed.

CL: So you started MOCA with Terry Fox? Were you grant-funded at that time or was this a project that was entirely financed through you own means?

TM: Terry Fox was like an artist in residence. He did a show there in ’70 in the summer. By the end of the year I had decided to make it a non-profit corporation. Because I’d written to the National Endowment for the Arts to apply for a grant and they said the only way I could get a grant would be if I were a non-profit corporation. So I made it a non-profit corporation. It took about 9 months or a year, something like that to get that and then I got my first grant from them in ‘71 and then I had memberships and people became members and I had a few patrons. And I ran it like an art museum. I mean most people didn’t take it seriously. Most people said that’s impossible, you can’t have a museum if it’s conceptual art. Conceptual art can only be in your head. But conceptual art was people who use language, people who work with systems and people who made actions, and MOCA was a museum for that kind of conceptual art which is a real strong West Coast phenomena, a real Bay Area aesthetic. Probably MOCA has a lot to do with it because it was a space for people to show, to do that kind of art before there were other places around. It was a first space for this kind of art in the country.

CL: You say that MOCA is now in a phasing out period.

TM: Well, as a performance space, it is. I doubt if I’ll have any more performances here. I think that performances have become academic. They’ve become part of the academy. And there isn’t a need to do it anymore. One of my concerns as a museum is to preserve. And what I’m doing is preserving that space, because I’ve kept it the same as I found it. I didn’t sand the floor or paint it white or do anything lake that to the space. It was a printing company for 50 years and when I moved in and saw it, it was perfect. It was like something that should be saved. People in positions to save things think they should only save Victorian houses. They wouldn’t think of saving an industrial space as a relic from another age. It’s got real quality to it, stained glass windows and those things here that… anyways, so, even, though the space doesn’t get used much in a traditional way like for exhibitions and stuff, it’s being used and I’m saving it. It has a purpose, you know, and that’s basic stuff. It’s collecting energy from, it survives. And that’s part of my personal setting too (pointing). That case of empty beer bottles is a relic of an activity that I did in ‘72. I drank all those beers in one afternoon. It happened. It’s like an object that wasn’t made as an end in itself. It’s an object that was used as a material, to explain something, to communicate an idea. [13]

The Museum of Conceptual Art is one of the first alternative art spaces which can be considered artwork itself and which also houses important residue as documentation. The number and quality of works and events sponsored by MOCA cannot be mentioned in this essay, but suffice it to say that the support that MOCA has offered to artists has been immeasurable. Although at this writing it is threatened with destruction by planned urban redevelopment, MOCA still exists as a museum.

Since the mid-1970’s, however, MOCA as a performance space has scheduled less and less activity. The justification for this decision is based on Marioni’s perception that performances have become academic, and, as the states, ‘‘it is no longer important to do them.’’ Additionally, although MOCA pioneered the formation of alternative spaces, San Francisco presently has several artist-maintained exhibition spaces which regularly offer performances. In short, San Francisco has become a performance town, to such a degree that some people, as Marioni has noted, think of conceptual art only as performance.

MOCA has been a ‘‘social work’’ for Marioni and he has carried that concern into the Cafe Society, the principal activity of MOCA since the mid-1970’s. MOCA is situated above Breen’s Bar which throughout the years has served as an adjunct space at MOCA. The first video exhibition of body works, organized by Marioni and Willoughby Sharp, took place at Breen’s in 1970. The videotapes were displayed on the bar’s television set. A Tight Thirteen Minutes (1976), a series of one minute works by 13 artists, was another videotape programmed by MOCA on Breen’s television set. Marioni has programmed MOCA receptions in Breen’s as well as situational works with artists. Breen’s became the ‘‘saloon/salon’’ of MOCA, where on Wednesday from 2 to 4 p.m. the Cafe Society would meet. In the MOCA tradition, beer was consumed and ideas exchanged. As Marioni has expressed, ‘‘my concept of ‘cafe-society’ is drunken parties where ideas are born.’’ Because of urban redevelopment plans, Breen’s is now closed, despite Marioni’s attempt to have the building preserved as a historic landmark. ‘‘My main activity is social,’’ Marioni says, ‘‘and what I’m trying to do is make art that’s as close to real life as I can without its being real life.’’

‘‘In an art medium such as performance, where life often becomes the total content of the work, life can also become the form, with little or no distinction between where art stops and life begins. ‘‘It could be said that performance artists develop their ideas through conversation and readings in psychology, philosophy, etc. but when one reads in these fields it is the principles and situations most like those one has personnaly known which influence thought.’’ [15] Any discussion of performance must consider the lives and experiences of the artists producing the work. Tom Marioni currently thinks of art that is ‘‘close to real life’’ and yet remains art. The life and work are extremely close and flowing and I constantly make actions in private that are the same as my public manifestations’’. In performance art there is often then a blurred distinction between art and life. In many cases they are nearly the same, with the difference being a matter of perception and framing. When asked if he acknowledges that art is life.’’

[13] Carl E. Loeffler, ‘‘Tom Marioni… in Conversation,’’ Art Contemporary, Spring, 1976, p.3.

[14] Tom Marioni regarded MOCA as an ‘‘ephemeral… underground museum’’… when he first started it in 1970 because ‘‘it dealt with something that no one else was doing’’ but when other museums and galleries began programming ‘‘the same kind of art… it became academic.’’ Marioni is not interested in doing ‘‘things that are… overtly art’’ and by ‘‘disguisng’’ his activity he can ‘‘go back underground.’’ Presently he is doing things ‘‘disguised as non-art’’… which he says is just the ‘‘same as in the beginning, when nobody thought direct actions had anything to do with art’’. (Robin White, ‘‘Tom Marioni,’’ View, Oakland, 1978, p.4-5.)

[15] Rosemary Mayer, ‘‘Performance and Experience,’’ Arts Magazine, New York, December 1972, p.34. Mayer contends that performance art is most explicable by considering the life experience of the artists who produce the work because: 1. the relationship of the artist is to performance as subject-object. 2. the nonexistence of a traditional form. 3. most art criticism is formalist by nature.

- McCARTHY Paul, Black and White Tapes, 1970-75, video, 32:50 minutes, sound, b/w.

This group of works by Paul MacCarthy, Black and White Tapes (1970-1975), contains 13 studio performances in which the body’s expressive presence is suffused with an anarchist sense of humor that is at once liberating and repulsive. MacCarthy, for instance, becomes a human paintbrush that is dragged across the studio floor with an open can of white paint affixed to his head, thus performing a parodic variation on a familiar Minimalist gesture – the drawing of a white line. These actions reach a provocative climax when the artist turns to adress the audience by spitting into the camera lens.

- MAD MINA, Demonstration, 1970. Amsterdam.

- McLEAN Bruce, Pose Work for Plinths, 1970. Londres (see 1971)

- MACCAN Peter, Sound Sculpture As, MOCA, 30/04/1970 (see description Sound Sculpture As, 1970)

- MELCHERT Jim, — Cecile McCann, « Melchert Games », Artweek, v. 1, February 21, 1970, p. 1, 16.

Review of exhibit at the San Francisco Art Institute in which the letter « a » (verbal and visual puns) was used for large-scale environmental works. Viewers were invited to enter the structure and to intermingle with the environment.

- MILLER Roland & CAMERON Shirley, Railway Images, 1970.

- MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE, Improvisations, 1970.

- NATALIA LL, Velvet Terror, 1970.

- NAUMAN Bruce

— « Nauman Interview », with Willoughby Sharp, Arts Magazine, v.44, March 1970, pp.22-27.

Excerpt :

« WS: In Flour Arrangements, the photographs documented a work, whereas in Portrait of the Artist as Fountain the photo documented you as a work. Does that mean that you see yourself as an object in the context of the piece?

BN: I use the figure as an object. More recently that’s roughly the way I’ve been thinking, but I didn’t always. And when I did those works, I don’t think such differences or similarities were clear for me. It’s still confusing. As I said before, the problems involving figures are about the figures as an object, or at least the figure as a person and the things that happen to a person in various situations – to most people rather than just to me or one particular person.

WS: What kind of performance pieces did you do in 1965?

BN: I did a piece at David which involved standing with my back to the wall for about forty-five seconds or a minute, leaning out from the wall, then bending at the waist, squatting, sitting and finally lying down. There were seven different positions in relation to the wall and floor. Then I did the whole sequence again standing away from the wall, facing the wall, then facing left et facing right. There were twenty-eight positions and the whole presentation lasted for about half an hour. »

— « PheNAUMANology, » Artforum, v.9, December 1970, pp.38-44. (Marcia Tucker)

Lengthy article on Bruce Nauman, includes several illustrations.

Excerpt:

(Marcia Tucker) « Our bodies are necessary to the experience of any phenomenon. It is characteristic of Nauman’s work that he has always used his own body and its activities as both the subject and object of his pieces. He has made casts from it (Hand to Mouth, Neon Templates of the Left Half of My Body Taken at 10 Inch Intervals, etc.) and manipulated it (in earlier performances using his body in relation to a T-bar or neon tube, as well as in the holograms). He has made video tapes of his own activities (Bouncing Balls in the Studio) and film of parts of his body being acted upon; Bouncing Balls and Black Balls are slow-motion films of Nauman’s testicles moving and being painted black. He has questioned, in various pieces, his behavior as an artist and his attitudes toward himself as such. He has contorted his body and face to the limits of physical action as well as representation. By making audiotapes of himself clapping, breathing, whispering and playing the violin, he has also explored a range of noises made and perceived by his own body. This concern with physical self is not simple artistic egocentrism, but use of the body to transform intimate subjectivity into objective demonstration. »

- NAUMAN Bruce, L.A. AIR, Los Angeles : self-published, 1970. Artist book.

- NAUMAN Bruce, Live-Taped Video Corridor, 1970. Cf. Media art net

- NAUMAN Bruce, Studies for Hologram, 1970 (silkscreen on glossy cover stock. 26’’ x 26’’ (série Making Faces).

— Willoughby Sharp, « Body Works : A Pre-Critical, Non-Definitive Survey of Very Recent Work Using the Human Body or Parts Thereof », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, pp. 14-17. Extrait :

« The previous year (in 1968), Bruce Nauman made a series of eight by ten inch holograms, Making Faces. On the afternoon of Tuesday May 12, 1970 he went into a vacant Pasadena lot and clapped his hands… »

- NICOLA L, The Red Coat/Same Skin for Everybody, Amsterdam, NYC, Barcelone, Ibiza.

- NITSCH Hermann, Action 33. Orgies-Mysteries Theater, 8 octobre 1970.

Round House, Cooke-Douglass Campus, Rutgers University. Photos : Das Anudas.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Parallel Stress, 1970. action. Long Island. NYC.

L’artiste teste son corps jusqu’à la limite de la fatigue, en reliant deux murs parallèles avec son corps, et ce pendant dix minutes. Une photographie sera prise au moment le plus critique de la performance.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Reading Position for a Degree Burn, 1970 (action-photo).

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Stills from Gingerbread Man, 1970-71.

« A project dealing with activation of digestive processes. Situation created in which first… a symbolically human form is slowly broken down and subjected to the linearity of the intestinal tract… it is used to fill an internal space… and by emptying the stomach beforehand this material is allowed full occupancy… It takes over the space, forcing itself into a linear housing… where it is held captive to gastric processes, additional breakdown and depletion. Here the process of making (changes) is linked with that of a life sustaining interaction.

The residue (waste products) becomes the finished work Micro-Projection-Feces

Gingerbread material consisting of: enriched flour, sugar, dried molasses, shortening with freshness preserver, leavening, salt, vegetable gum, spices, caramel color, was rolled into dough and shaped to resemble a human form. These figures were slowly eaten and digested. Later my intestinal tract was emptied. Ten samples of feces were placed on glass slides. These samples were viewed under a microscope at magnification of x 280 to x 3000. » (see Lea Vergine, p. 185)

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, The Residue (waste products) becomes the finished work Micro-Projection-Feces. 1970.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Compression-Fern (Hand), 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Compression -Fern (Face), 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Compression-Poison Oak, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Extended Armour, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Fusion Tooth and Nail, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Glassed Hand, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Identity Transfer, 1970 (film)

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Lead Sink For Sebastian, 1970. Vidéo

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Material Interchange, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Nail Sharpening, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Pressure Force 1, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Rocked Hand, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Rocked Stomach, 1970. Vidéo.

- OPPENHEIM Dennis, Toward Becoming a Devil, 1970. Vidéo.

- PANE Gina, Terre Protégée, 1970. Italie.

- PAZOS Luis, Ritual, Performance. 1970. Paris.

- PICARD Lil, Teach-Art Action, 1970. East Village.

- PIPER Adrian, Catalysis III, 1970-71. NYC.

« Lorsqu’elle performe Catalysis, Adrian Piper s’isole dans l’espace public en s’y perdant grâce à l’anonymat. Seules de très rares images existent de cette série qu’elle réalise pendant deux ans. En revanche, elle la décrit longuement dans ses textes. Le langage permet de créer des images mentales et se substitue à un enregistrement mécanique. »

(Nathalie Boulouch & Elvan Zabunyan, « Introduction », in Janig Bégoc, Nathalie Boulouch & Elvan Zabunyan, La Performance. Entre archives et pratiques contemporaines, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes & Archives de la critique d’art, 2010, p. 21)

- PIPER Adrian, Catalysis IV, 1970-71. NYC.

- PORTMAN Julie, Theater Workshop of Boston, 1970, Voorhees Chapel, Douglass College.

Photo. Susan Elisabeth Ryan.

- RINKE Klaus, Mutation, 1970.

Mutation

Wand, Boden, Raum

« I am explained that every person from where he may be or from whatever social background he is coming… should obtain the opportunity to know himself and to work with himself with the help of these elementary demonstrations of reality. Most people are hampered because of their more or less complete integration into the battle for existence and they are attached to certain forms of living which take their course in them and with them. The study of this book could signify something like a starting factor in order to become conscious of the basic structures of individual being… The artist should have the opportunity to place environmental situations in a way that they are useful for consciousness. These situations should not limit somebody but they should help to free activities. For instance people should be continuously conscious of time in their environment. But this experience everybody could measure the degree of intensity or dullness of the life he is living. » (see Lea Verine, p. 221)

- RINKE Klaus, Wand, Boden, Raum, 1970.

- RUPPERSBERG Allan,

— see Willoughby Sharp, « Outsiders : Baldessari, Jackson, O’Shea, Ruppersberg », Arts Magazine, Summer 1970, p. 42.

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee rencontre Valie EXPORT à Londres

— « Lorsqu’on l’on lit les récits sans détour faits par Carolee Schneemann de la réception de ses performances ou de celle de Valie Export, qu’elle rencontre à Londres en 1970 alors que celle-ci, persécutée, fuit son Autriche natale et conservatrice, on saisit pleinement le lien que ces femmes établissent avec l’art de la performance comme forme ultime de la revendication politique et sexuelle. (note : Londres, comme le relate Carolee Schneemann, était à cette époque une ville d’accueil et de rencontres pour tous les expatriés occidentaux : les artistes radicaux, les activistes politiques, les résistants à la Guerre du Vietnam ou encore les jeunes femmes artistes appartenant à un underground émergent.) Carolee Schneemann accueille Valie Export dans son modeste appartement, elle évoque leurs positions artistiques similaires où le corps existe dans son rapport au risque, à l’action. Par leurs performances, elles fracturent les prédictions et les formalisations esthétiques, et font en sorte de retirer le corps féminin du cloisonnement de l’histoire de l’art et de l’idéalisation étouffante du modèle et de la muse. »

[Nathalie Boulouch & Elvan Zabunyan, « Introduction », Janig Bégoc, Nathalie Boulouch & Elvan Zabunyan, La Performance. Entre archives et pratiques contemporaines, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes & Archives de la critique d’art, 2010, p. 17.]

-— [Carolee Schneemann] « Nous nous sommes dit l’une l’autre combien nous étions dans le risque de tout perdre sauf notre vision de l’art : le gouvernement autrichien avait pris l’enfant de Valie la considérant comme une mère indigne et la jugeant inapte à l’élever. J’étais en exil, loin de mon partenaire, de ma maison, de mon travail. Nous étions toutes les deux fragiles et furieuses. Ensemble nos buts étaient confirmés, la potentialité des pouvoirs déstabilisants du corps féminin était entre nos mains. Valie Export était arrivée d’Autriche pour son action à la Filmmaker’s Cooperative qui se trouvait alors dans une laiterie abandonnée à Camden Town, elle allait recouvrir le sol avec le carreau d’une fenêtre, se coucher dessus nue et le briser avec les mouvements de son corps. » [Carolee Schneemann, « Valie » in Carolee Schneemann, Imaging her Erotics, Essays, Interviews, Projects, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2002, p. 97]

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Banana Hands (scénario de 1962), performed March 23 1970, New Milton Drama Center The Castle, Winchester, England. see 1962 and 1969

- SCHNEEMANN Carolee, Thames Crawling, 1970.

- SHERK Bonny Ora, Portable Park, 1970.

Since the early 1970s, Bonnie Ora Sherk (USA) has been creating participatory artworks in public spaces which deal with environmental and ecological issues. Starting sith her installations by the sides of major roads, and a massive communal garden near a large intersection in San Francisco (‘‘The Farm’’), to the ‘‘Living Library’’ of today – in a development from ephemeral phenomena to large-scale social artworks – all of Sherk’s projects aim to create a new understanding of and relationship with the space we inhabit.

Portable Park were performances by the side of the freeway, in which Bonnie Ora Sherk created temporary pastoral islands in the midst of chaotic traffic. For Sitting Still, the artist dressed up in an evening gown and sat still for hours in various places such as a garbage dump or near the Golden Gate Bridge. In Public Lunch, she had herself locked up in a cage at the zoo where, like the tigers in the adjacent cage, she waited for feeding time under the gaze of the zoo’s visitors. Sherk initially called her works Life Frames, but in 1981 she abandoned this term in favour of the concept Living Libraries. The documentary DVD Evolution of Live Frames contains photographic and video documents from various decades.

– Portable Park No. 2. San Francisco, Ca., 1970. In the Portable Park Series, nos. 1-3, turf, palm trees and livestock were installed for brief periods of time at unlikely places. Site for Portable Park No. 2, Mission Street freeway off-ramp.

— Jerome Tarshis, « Portable Park Project 1-3 », Artforum, v.9, October 1970, p. 84. Excerpt :

‘‘… ‘Portable Park Project 1-3, « in which turf, palm trees, and livestock were set down for brief periods at three unlikely places… Miss Sherk has said she is no longer interested in the kind of object art that is shut up in museums, but in environmental art that confronts people who do not necessarily go out in search of art.’’

‘‘Life as art and the art of living art are themes central to the work of Bonnie Sherk, who began ‘‘performing life’’ in the series Portable Park (1970), in which ‘‘turf, palm, tree, and livestock were set down for brief periods at three unlikely places’’. Sherk’s interest in these environmental type works stemmed from her basic disinterest in specific object art, and a desire to create an art based on confronting life.’’

- SHERK Bonnie, Sitting Still. No.1, San Francisco, Ca., 1970. Performance by the artist appearing formally dressed and seated in a stuffed chair situated in a flooded city dump. San Francisco.

‘‘Sitting Still (1970), Sherk confronted the flow of life around her by sitting on a chair for extended periods of time in environments often bizarre in nature. The most striking juxtaposed image in the photographically documents series features Sherk in elegant formal attire, seated in an overstuffed armchair situated in the middle of a city dump floated with water.

- SMITH Barbara, White Meal, 1970.

- SOUND SCULPTURE AS « Rumbles; The Museum of Conceptual Art, » Avalanche, no.1, Fall 1970, p.6.

Description of the opened of MOCA, San Francisco, and the show, Sound Sculpture As. Excerpt:

« MOCA’s latest show, Sound Sculpture As, a one night presentation of successive sound events by ten Bay Area artists, was held on April 30. For the first piece, Peter Maccan laid plastic wrapping material on the floor which popped when arriving visitors walked over it. Mel Henderson paced up and down the large loft with a 30 caliber rifle. He took aim and fired a single shot at a film image of a tiger being projected on a paper-covered saw horse. Just then, the telephone rang fifteen times, twice in succession; Jim Melchert had dialed the museum from Breen’s, a famous bar across the street. Allan Fish’s piece was performed by Tom Marioni. Perched atop an eight foot ladder, he pissed into a galvanized washtub (see Tom Marioni, Pissing, 1970) As the tub filled, the sound dropped in pitch. He was followed by Terry Fox, who scraped a shovel accross the linoleum floor and vibrated a thin plexiglass sheet very fast. Jim McCready paraded four girls wearing shiny nylons down a 3 x 9’ long rug. As they rubbed their thighs together a swishing sound was heard. Paul Kos, who is known for outdoor works, using ice and salt licks, collaborated with Richard Beggs, an electronic musician, on a piece in which eleven boom-microphones tried to pick up the sound of two 25 lb. blocks of melting ice. For the finale, Arlo Acton distributed several hundred metal crickets and the loft began to ring with chirping sounds. Then he released a polished metal ball hung from the ceiling which smashed into a heavy glass plate. »

– Jerome Tarshis, « Sound Sculpture As: Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco; Exhibit., » Artforum, v.9, September 1970, p.91. Review of Sound Sculpture As, a one night sound event sponsored by MOCA on April 30, 1970, includes description of works by participating artists: Mel Henderson, Jim Melchert with Jim Pomeroy, Allan Fish (Tom Marioni), Terry Fox, Paul Kos and Richard Beggs, Jim McCready, and others.

- SPOERRI Daniel, Cannibal Dinner (Le Dîner Cannibal), 1970.

- STOCKHAUSEN Karlheinz, Spherical Concert Hall, 1970. Tokyo (musique)

- THE COCKETTE, Madame Butterfly, MOCA. May 18, 1970

(« Museum MOCA, San Francisco », Avalanche, no. 1, Fall 1970, p. 10. Photograph of The Cockettes’ performance piece, Madame Butterfly, at MOCA, May 18, 1970)

- UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM, University of California, Berkeley, opened 1970.

Director, Peter Selz; Curator, Brenda Richardson.

Excerpt from Moira Roth, « Toward a History of California Performance, Part One, » Arts Magazine, v.52, February 1978, p.99:

« At the same time as MOCA started, a new institutional space for Performance was provided in Berkeley. Directed by Peter Selz, the new building of the University Art Museum opened with much celebration in 1970. Ann Halprin defined the space of the building through dance, and, during the gala opening, Bill Wiley did a piece called The American Dream. In the basement of the museum there was a bar set up Western style where many artists in cowboy suits lounged and drank until interrupted by Peter Selz, who had been cued to enter, sling his money down on the bar and demand, « Give me some art. » Paul Cotton literally « stuck him up » from behind by printing rubber stamp marks on his back.

Brenda Richardson, then curator of the Berkeley Museum, has written vividly of those times: « We had Dance, music, performance – both local and national people… Marioni floating chicken feathers all round the building, Paul Cotton in his bunny suit posing, as I recall, with George Segal. Steve Reich’s magic concert for the building’s opening. Jim Melchert’s chair piece. San Francisco Ballet performing Shaker Dances. Wiley leading a parade of people playing Jew’s harps. Terry Fox inducing a transe of himself – and all of us watching – by shaping a labyrinth out of floor. Simone Forti. Somebody climbing the concrete museum building. James Lee Byars with yards and yards of fuchsia satin draped over and around hundreds of participants in the old powerhouse gallery. My memories go on and on. But my memory is unreliable and erratic. There were many many other events. »

- URIBURU Nicola Garcia, Coloracion del Gran Canal, 1970. Venise.

- VAN RIPER Peter, Flux-Mass Procession with Gorillas and Choir, 17 février 1970.

Voorhees Chapel, Douglass College, New Brunswick. Photo : Das Anudas.

- WEIBEL Peter, TV News (TV Death 2), 1970-72 (action-vidéo)

- WILEY William T., The American Dream, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, opened 1970. Director : Peter Selz, Curator : Brenda Richardson.